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Based loosely on the family story of actor Elisabeth Shue, this tale of a teenage girl wanting to play soccer with the boys after her adored older brother dies has been in the works for a long time. In interviews, Shue and her brother Andrew have talked about the importance of the project.

It's a great disappointment, then that this family labour of love, which has the brother and sister starring and Shue's husband, Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) directing, as well as another brother co-producing, ends up more like a middling after-school special than an insightful look at family dynamics. It goes to show that sometimes the people closest to a potentially poignant story are not the best to bring that story it to an audience.

Carly Schroeder, in the title role, does a good job with the clichéd lines she is given and Dermot Mulroney, grey-haired and weary, is okay as her surly father, who belatedly comes to believe that his daughter can compete.

While the soccer is the best thing about Gracie, good sports footage does not a great sports movie make.

The filmmakers don't trust us to figure out the ham-fisted message about setting yourself free by persevering and soaring out into the world. So they provide Gracie with a pet bird in a cage. Will the bird be let out? Can you stand the tension?

But, worse than all that, Gracie fails the litmus test of a good sports movie (this theory excludes Bull Durham and Major League): It doesn't make you cry. Brian's Song, Million Dollar Baby, Cinderella Man, Field of Dreams and countless others are like great big movie onions. Even recent run-of-the-mill football yarn Invincible, was able to draw a few tears.

When the grand finale rolls around and young Gracie finally gets to show her skills on the pitch, you know you're supposed to get choked up. But perhaps because it's difficult to cry while you're rolling your eyes.

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